Originally posted by jaxter:
the Camarobird has the same tranny/engine...which begs the question, why then buy the vette (esp an older one)? It looks cool, but looks will cost lots more to own and the perf. is nearly identical. Sounds like a no-brainer.
A 'no-brainer' is right because you're obviously not using yours to it's full potential. The performance is NOT nearly identical. The pony cars are all nearly identical. The Corvette is not and has never been a pony car. None of them are close to the peformance of the same year vette (even within 2 years of each other.) Your SVT is a better comparison to the Camarobird/Mustang ponies. When you're talking performance, you're talking 1/4 trap speeds (measured by tenths of a second), top speeds (mph), and handling (g's). The vette is more than a full second (or more) faster in the 1/4 than the ponies (and people pay hundreds of dollars to shave tenths off.) Top speed is more than 20+mph faster than the ponies. Short of changing out the rear-end, how many greenbacks to increase top end by 20+ mph AND keep your 1/4 times?? And the vette sticks to the skid pad a couple tenths better than the ponies. How much to even up that score?
The ponies performance as a whole is well below that of a vette. Once (and only once that I'm aware) the premier GM supertuner Lingenfelter did a Camaro that was better than the factory vette, and cost less than the base vette. I'd let that exception apply to your statement. Otherwise it's a little-league game being played in a big-league field. Yes, you'll occasionally see some in-the-park homeruns, but no one of these ponies is slamming them out of the park.
